


Poet The Fool

by kerning



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route Spoilers, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:28:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23813074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kerning/pseuds/kerning
Summary: Wherewithal gone, carried on high as a beacon, the world narrowing to the metal plating of Dorte’s armor, a dull shine against the moonlight, Marianne should be here, should be just there, curry comb in hand, until so lifted the veil of sadness in her eyes.--Lorenz finds hope in the bleakest of times.
Relationships: Hilda Valentine Goneril/Raphael Kirsten, Marianne von Edmund/Lorenz Hellman Gloucester
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	Poet The Fool

Sun sinking low, the twisted remains of the battlefield staged on Garreg Mach’s outskirts echoed with fire-breath, its path wending shouts and the stench of boiled blood fresh in his mind, almost recent for its clarity. But how often had Lorenz tarried in memories of the monastery? Not so long ago, if he cared to admit within the confines of his mind. He did not believe in ghosts—impossible an occurrence as it was. The crumbled stone was its own sad monument, indelible with the scars of their conflicts.

The scenery wasn’t much, but the golden hour light suffused even the shadows with its glow, stretching Dorte’s shadow overlong. Figuratively impressive, however when Lorenz nudged corporeal Dorte into a trot, he protested. Honestly, he was far too much like his namesake. For all of his balking, only fate or destiny, a terse note, it’s an outcry familiar that pulled both their attentions, pricked ears towards the sound, their direction leading Lorenz to squint against the sunset. The thin wan grass struggling against the innards of fallen buildings paled against a signature bright green.

Ignatz, balm to a thin fear he’d made the journey for naught, or, far worse still, only Claude.

Bound by propriety in exchanging greetings, Ignatz couched his distress at the monastery within them. “It’s fallen to such disrepair,” Ignatz cast his gaze upward, soft-spoken in awe at the cathedral whole despite its dimmed windows, though their glass sparked various colours. A vestige of a smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Well, not everything.”

Trust him to admire even the ruins, heeding a beauty Lorenz could not pinpoint.

With every shifting step forward, Lorenz slowed, keeping pace with Ignatz as their gaunt silhouettes melded into twilight under the watching eye of the cathedral, its spires dissolving with the setting sun. Under its lofty gaze, Ignatz often split his attentions from their conversation and it was little wonder to Lorenz. A great many qualities lay within Ignatz, but attentiveness in the face of his fascinations were not among them.

It was rather odd, but he supposed no better if time quelled his own habits. Were they in the bygone cathedral transept proper, high ceilings and choral prayers had made of Lorenz small but not terribly pious. Even still, a certain somber aura lingered over the path of their conversation and he made haste to correct it.

“And I take it your artistry became a hobby well-tended, I presume?” A cutting line but to his untrained eye, refined as it may be, Lorenz could name the possibility of Ignatz’s denial a dagger, a true shame had he submitted to a method stifling his abilities. He had made no idle offer, after all.

“Indeed, I find the time to…” The skittering of steps in the distance led Ignatz to silence, both of them at once on guard.

If rumour served—nothing so lowborn to be named gossip reached his ears but mere fact—the monastery lay rife, overrun with bandits. Exchanging a wordless glance with Ignatz, they changed course. Careful as he lead his horse, who picked over the road more churned up cobblestone than pathway, Lorenz allowed memory to lead him ever closer to the epicenter.

A strangled gurgle quieted to death’s placid lull.

Reflex brought from his leather valise Thyrsus, the staff’s foci pulsing as if in anticipation for a fight. Near a torch at his back, magic warmed his fingertips.

Surely none of his fellow Golden Deer would succumb to such common criminals, yet care exchanged for haste, his heeled boots clicked heavy against the stirrups, a command invoking Dorte’s name—the routine of his estate, its expectations and solitude from his friends left him with a particular ease on that regard, small boons, if you will—and so slipping from his lips, cursed him, rousing Dorte as if aware he could outpace his heated face. Though Ignatz cried out, whether from his exposed secret or abandonment, Lorenz needn’t confirm as he forged ahead.

Dusk was upon them in full, yet a twin glow to his Relic there and gone in a hovering cant guided him deeper towards the heart of the thieves’ lair. Living off of the bounty the Church provided even now in its abandonment, those bandits proved what could truly never be again. Peace, unity, all falsehoods. The mere concept rose an ire Lorenz so rarely possessed, yet what remained would not be hoarded by these miscreants.

Encountering a pair of bandits in quick succession who hadn’t the time to notice Lorenz before they fell, his incantation having boiled them both in an instant, he didn’t bother to call out to Claude until the curve of Failnaught illuminated his profile ember bright, the loosed arrow always, always striking true. Part victory and hailing simultaneously, Claude crowed out, twirling out of the way leisurely from the bandit’s returning fire. As in times past, Claude turned his back to the enemy. _He’s only baiting them._ And now to great success, he played each thief into a predictable pattern. Blade. Lance. Arrow. A waste. They will not strike him.

What an utter show-off.

The bandits were an invisible threat, the amalgam of detritus and rubble forced pathways into maze-like corridors ceilinged by the encroaching dark. Behind him, Ignatz’s panting breath, ragged as he caught up, steadied. Dorte with nary a length to maneuver, his rhythmic steps coupled with another in half-time and feather-light. They did not approach from behind. Summoning circle cast, Lorenz borrowed the eternal flame for his own purpose, intent on sending the glinting axe owner among its brethren, yet when the fighter rounded the corner, so rendezvoused with an arrow between the eyes. As he glanced over his shoulder, Ignatz’ brow furrowed, another arrow nocked and the crystals of his magic bow dimming from the shot. Semi-prepared and content with Ignatz watching his back, it was almost nothing to rout bandit after bandit. Each one uncompromising despite their inevitable defeat, they jeered and expended their last breath upon idle curses. A whisper rather than shout.

There would be no escape.

Ahead after a lull, Lorenz spied through a rotten crumbling wall the flicker of a bonfire. Settled around it was a hulking mass of heavy armor, yet another thin shape hunched over with twin daggers at their back. A camp. Drunken voices drifted over the gap of the wooden gate, ignorant of their dead. Still, better to employ caution. A tremor crossed his frame, the odd notion of being watched. Unable to make out their true numbers, he backed off, intent on another path whereupon he could perhaps bottleneck their forces. Immediate threat passed, the corded tension in his shoulders eased.

Without warning, approaching footsteps obliquely pinned him backwards. _Silent as the grave._ Silvery swift, the blade carved his thigh in white-hot pain. He dodged the second strike meant to gut him by the narrowest of margins. Unable to reorient, Dorte reared back. Lorenz gripped his axe handle, struck blind at the skulking assassin. The assassin darted inside his reach, a huff of lungs, overconfident. Jostled forward, for one terrible moment the sword raised high, a reaper’s sickle. Dorte’s descent came first, impact the crunch of broken bone, an unfettered kick where breath left from them for good, dispatching his foe.

“Commendable,” Lorenz said, stern-sweet as he could manage through grit teeth. To be sure, Dorte was a Gloucester. Though his shivering sides seemed response enough at the praise, perhaps it was Lorenz own heartbeat thundering within his head, in his entire body. In the moment he could not be certain. Praise exchanged for compliance, Dorte took the gentlest of commands. His mind swam. Wherewithal gone, carried on high as a beacon, the world narrowing to the metal plating of Dorte’s armor, a dull shine against the moonlight, Marianne should be here, should be just there, curry comb in hand, until so lifted the veil of sadness in her eyes. His Dorte would she find pleasant? They moved ever forward. As was meant.

Claude’s wyvern screeched, its cry murky beneath the water surface barrier of the stuttering rhythm in his ears. Shuttered as if skimming a tome’s pages, Marianne’s smile flickered, a dear wish paling under his best efforts. Beyond his grasp, the edges of his vision dimmed. Several paces to his back, ice crystals splintered, the burnt cold numbness, struck true and averted another threat. It had not frozen him. Memorized spells shuffled like cards, garbled into meaningless sounds his tongue couldn’t form, wrought heavy and fat in his mouth. As he listed in the saddle, Ignatz’s voice pitched equally odd while he rushed past the thin gap between Dorte and the wall, low-level fire magic deepening the bowstring indent in the center of his lip like an unfortunate guideline for cleaving him in twain.

A pop echoed in his head. Ignatz knelt to ground, riffling through a dead man’s purse only to— after smelling the contents—raise a near consumed vial in his direction. Sealed off like this in silence, Lorenz relied on the shape of his name, distinguished no matter whose mouth professed it.

“Surely you jest.” He certainly never claimed to be mute. “You expect me to partake after swine?” _The unmitigated gall._ Despite his unwieldy tongue when Ignatz flushed, the rose of it paired with an inaudible mumble softened the thorn of his forthcoming words which the roil of his stomach further inspired. “Very well.”

War decimated the order of society.

He reached out with his left hand only for it to remain stiff and unresponsive at his side. Beyond himself and numbed on one side, all of Lorenz’ offense was stolen to his surprise as Ignatz, in a rare bout of initiative, forced the vial into his functioning palm.

The antitoxin spilt past his lips and nothing so undignified as a grunt met air, unrefined and unpleasant taste notwithstanding. His hearing returned and his thoughts became clearer. Along with pain.

Nothing staunched the bleeding in regards to pressure—the blade had cut deep, lifeblood gushing hot between his gloved fingers. Why in the goddess’ name had he never learnt to heal?

Fools the both of them. Ignatz’s sharp whistle served as signal for aid. His fingers scant left his mouth before he released an arrow into the unprotected throat of a bandit.

Healing came rarest of all, the distant signature not of Marianne yet much appreciated and the world realigned itself, stray thoughts bound to a singular focus. Marianne’s smile dissipated into vapor, unwritten poetry he’d yet to scribe. He would not fall here.

Splintering wood, the second wave incoming. All upon them. Between one breath and the next, within his hands a tempest, he cast aside impossibilities, for what did they matter—his wound would be the smallest victory this rabble gained before they returned to the goddess.

Thereupon the battle, trouble renewed, though it began and ended with Claude, as per usual. They could only remain neutral for so long. Ever mindful of those halcyon days where pure acquisition arrived dashed upon the rocky shoals of reality, Lorenz had learned to breathe with the threat of war a knifepoint to his ribs. His posture did not suffer from it. All the better for close observation. And how many rogue spies defected under his behest? Though he’d never taken an oath, Lorenz’s true fealty was sworn to the Alliance and its greatest good. He would defer to Claude, but not without his constant bearing in mind of what he had to lose. Personal pride was the least of it. With the Gloucester territory came a loyalty to all that it embodied. Though if glib remarks kept Claude sharp, his very real presence tampered down the more outlandish of his designs focused on the larger picture… then so be it.

Claude must take care.

Now at the Professor’s return marked another sign of fortune as a steadying force guiding the Golden Deer—their entire class accounted presently, a relief shared, upstanding even those without noble blood held a touch of it within their actions—all was not lost, in the end, where their compasses pointed. The center of their meeting, the angle of Claude’s grin sharpened, quite sure of his odds in prospect of a new scheme.

Lest Claude get out of hand, Lorenz stood vigilant—a thriving rose full and bright beyond the parting morning fog—unmoving despite the twinge thrumming within his leg. It was a reunion and a good one but he would be remiss to recount every detail as his attentions waned to one person alone.

Some thin hope lay for Marianne to be unchanged by the passage of time. As if her unerring beauty could wane. Counterbalance in the meter and rhyme possessed in the certain set of her shoulders, hand clasped within her own, a subtle verve presented itself and Lorenz found himself as eager to be within her company as in times past. But their Professor had, true to his title, taught him a lesson of such import even in his absence—restraint. So he does not catalogue each of her features to memory nor hold them against either imaginary future, past or present Marianne, who stood among their peers, her light hair in stark contrast yet exceedingly valuable against the drab gold crowns bobbing nearby. All ulterior methods banished, his intentions shifted, and in the moment, he willed himself see her again. Her pretty mouth parted, recurve bow of it strung taut when met with a question, nip of the column of her neck peeking under a high scalloped collar, graceful as she turned away to answer.

A true folly, restraint. In full agreement, his thigh ached and a sheen of sweat heated beneath his own collar.

 _Gloucester_.

At Claude’s mention he frowned and turned his ear to the running conversation at hand. Of course Claude needed him for his plan to have any merit.

Though he held no great relish for this particular plot, in Claude’s request for letters to his father, Count Gloucester—in this scenario, it seemed more apt to think him thus—easier then to appease the rift in the Alliance. He would sign all in a steady hand, thread each flourish of his words betraying no weakness.

Moving in subterfuge, the tides of war, glory and peace. Truly he was meant to be writ in history—their reunion coalesced into war council and the entire importance sustained him until, at its conclusion, his leg gave out.

Lorenz later hovered in the infirmary doorway, shamefully winded as he’d grit his teeth against the flight of stairs. Nigh unchanged, memories of a pitcher filling a basin, its cool water churned with the swill of a soaking cloth by manicured hands with a contrary disposition fell to dust. But under Manuela’s supervision, the room had always smelt of dust and, beneath that, alcohol. Only dust remained in thicker swaths. At present came the scent of sweat and meat. No question of its source. Raphael sat upon the edge of a cot in a rare fit of quietude.

“There’s no need for all this. What I need is a good meal from the dining hall!” _Never mind._ Raphael continued with an outstretched hand to display his split knuckles to Marianne and Hilda. Vulgar. “It’s a scratch at best.”

“The dining hall can barely claim to be fully staffed, Raphael,” Hilda said, back to them all as she stepped up each ladder rung for a better scan of the poached medicine stores. A rare sight indeed. “I insist.” 

“I don’t see why,” Raphael murmured.

“How else will you protect me?” Hilda lilted, prizing her full devotion to searching the medicine cabinet.

He was not eavesdropping, merely catching his breath.

Whether in conceding the point or refuting it went undetermined as Raphael sighed, clinking bottles returned to their previous homes filling the room.

Marianne set aside the roll of gauze idling in her hand after a moment. “May I?”

At Raphael’s acquiescence, she held out both hands for him to slip between her palms. Large hands within her own, somehow the faint glow of healing magic escaped Hilda until she was upon them, tinned salve in hand.

“That works too.” Her voice only carried the faintest note of disappointment as Raphael withdrew from Marianne’s grip, skin unmarred. Hilda looked up. “Hey, Lorenz.”

He greeted them in turn and committed further into the room, belying none of his internal panic. Would Marianne have to lay hands on him as well? May the goddess strike him down for where his thoughts spun.

A beat of silence.

“Oh, um, you came to the infirmary,” Marianne said, the gauze roll twisting in her hands once again. “You must need something.”

“Nothing a bit of rest cannot cure,” Lorenz embellished, each step that of a wounded animal feigning outward health. He plucked a jar from the cabinet. “A dose or two, I’ll be fine.”

“You need heavy armor chafing balm?” Hilda’s nose wrinkled. “Since when?”

“Certainly never.” He blanched, bracing his hip against a table. “In my haste, I’d not—”

“You’re as steadfast as ever.” Hilda interrupted with a gentle nudge of Raphael’s arm. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“To the dining hall, silly. Bet there are at least snacks down there.”

“I could go for a snack.”

“Me too.” Hilda giggled, looking over her shoulder on her way out of the door. “Meet up with us later, okay, Marianne?”

She nodded.

“I’ll save you a seat too, buddy!”

It’s Marianne’s proximity alone staving off a ready correction to Raphael and his exhaustive list of bad manners.

While he’d not intentionally desired to see her so soon, with only so many people in the monastery, it was bound to happen. Alone, this would not do at all. Alone, his leg protested bearing his weight for long. He sank onto the opposing bed and explained his injury, the detail of it gestured for modesty’s sake on his forearm, tracing the pattern licking fire through his covered skin.

“Fresh and little injuries are my strong suit.” Modest as she was, for Lorenz had been altogether made whole by her fledgling efforts in times past, Marianne chewed the inside of her cheek, returning to his side with a different bottle. She swiped across the back of his hand a healthy portion of salve, which spread an odd tingle either from her touch or the product itself. Darting up and drawing the privacy curtain, Marianne spoke disembodied. “That may help.”

He gave due thanks and covered his sneeze from the cascade of dust filtering through the candlelight. Hyperaware of her silhouette on the other side, he made quick work of unlacing his trousers. Despite the smallest earlier glimpse of her face, she looked well, yet their first real interaction chafed to this day, and so he kept the observation to himself. This flooded embarrassment threatening to drown him simply would not do.

Nothing a Gloucester couldn’t handle. “I was glad to see you among those present.”

He had nearly finished his task when her voice halted his ministrations entirely.

“I’m sorry,” Marianne said softly.

“You are forgiven.” _You have my immediate forgiveness._ “But might I know the particulars?”

Before she spoke again the oily stain from the salve had marred his trousers in a hanging ellipsis.

“Your letters, I didn’t know how to respond.” Shaded from his sight, Marianne shifted like gossamer.

“I considered the possibility.” Thin stack of them bound in his valise, the scant letters he had received were equally marked by brevity in content. He had ceased writing after a time, lest he adapted the wrong approach. “You may respond any way you like. Even silence is its own reply.” He hummed in understanding while he set himself upright, both feet upon the floor. “Thank you for the clarification.”

“No, each time I wanted to share, to tell you—” Her voice dipped in audibility but distress rang apparent. “You thought of me.” If only she knew the truth of it. “Yet when I placed quill to parchment, I feared to burden and bore you all at once.”

“I highly doubt it.” He may not have the wildest of imaginations but his heart gladdened from every word no matter its form and a wry sort of amusement curled within him. “Entrust the least of your fears to my fortitude, and discover if I fall to slumber.”

The edges of her voice smoothed. “Well, I enjoy reading, to transport myself elsewhere but it’d be terribly dull to recount a book you’ve read or worse, ruin something you haven’t. I thought to send books but it didn’t seem practical.”

“It was most prudent of you to use caution. Reading is a fine method to gain new perspectives. And by mine, the only foreseen burden lies for the owl carrying such tomes.” At the unmistakable sound of her quiet laughter, he recovered a breath caught in his throat.

“Poor thing, that would be quite the strain.” Curled hand against the curtain, Marianne froze and he smothered the intense pang of regret filling his lungs at once without an eye for the assured sweetness of her expression. “Are you decent?” Despite approval, when her face turned away in drawing back the divider, Lorenz was hopelessly endeared until her face fell. “Oh no, for wounds like this it’s for the best if you allow your leg to extend, relax.”

He frowned following her orders but the sensation in his thigh numbed. Chief of his complaints lain with uncompleted tasks, an itch of restlessness shivered down his spine which only deepened in the silence as Marianne examined various cabinets and drawers, a select few vials culled. He rendered his gaze on her light, weight not as a breeze to birdwing, after a time resting on the mundane. She remained in the infirmary—uncorking bottles with a soft exclamation as she ascertained the contents—not vanished to the nearest feasible excuse. How very odd.

“Please, stay here.” She held a pitcher in her arms. “I’ll only be a moment.”

There it was.

Halfway into his mental missives to House Gloucester: his decision to stay at Garreg Mach and the reasons of it—omitting the controversial details, of course, requesting both transport of his affects and the immediate advance of his personal battalion; a lesser man may have begrudged such tasks, but the way of it became clear. The latter would prove easiest, entrusting their captain for the balanced skimming of the best knights required to champion their borders with those to follow Lorenz. No greater promise or test of mettle than the battlefield.

Stagnant as he was, he hobbled over to the secretary desk, each handprint to its rough wooden surface an historic trail in dust of his search. Third drawer in and a persistent lancing pain later with unadorned sheets of parchment in hand and a semi-dried inkwell, he returned to his inordinately dull post.

One letter bore his damp signature when lone footsteps slowed the drawl of his quill. Marianne’s presence ushered him pause, the order of his words a waltz’s misstep. She set on the table the full pitcher where from its precarious angle spilt a few drops, the whirlpool contained inside echoing against the periphery of his senses. He found his concentration ebbed and renewed much the same.

“I will compose a draught.” Marianne shook out a measure of herbs before moving onto the next. “Manuela outsmarted even the bandits, though I suppose they had little use for parchment.” Even as her words cut, bearing chastisement on their own, she never hesitated her work with the tap-grind-clink of mortar and pestle.

“Um. It doesn’t taste very good.” In time, the sharp aroma of alcohol warned him along with her directions of evening bedrest and a swift administration. “All at once.”

One ungracious draw later with a bitter aftertaste cloying to his tongue, and a cup of water providing no respite, he surrendered in the dimming candlelight that he best follow her advice after all.

Tendrils of dreams like vines pulled him from slumber with the inelegance of pruning shears, their vestiges clinging to his consciousness serving to disorient. Over the bleary stone floor, moonlight angled harsh, unchecked by damask curtains or the plush comfort of carpets. His quarters had never smelt so astringent, yet a floral note mingled in the boundary of it, almost familiar. At once, the infirmary rushed into focus. Blinking grogginess from his vision, Lorenz cradled his forehead against his palm, one inhalation mingled burning then fragrant.

Patent refusal to spend the entire night within the infirmary settling his resolve, he forced himself into a sit, bracing for lingering pain as he eased from the bed. It couldn’t be helped. He prodded at the wound, unresponsive save a subtle ache incongruous with how long he’d slept. Ah. Grateful though embarrassment warmed up to his ears, the passage of time had awarded a clear boon to Marianne’s talents. Thereupon the nearest table, the artifact of her presence lain trifold yet unsealed. Beneath lay a stack of books three high. There originated the scent, some tea or perfume softening his every breath. His letters remained as they were, collected without mind as Lorenz skimmed what was not so much a letter as a brief note in Marianne’s neat and measured cursive. She urged him rest while bidding him return her books.

Extinguishing the sputtering candle, the room succumbed to partial darkness and in the settling of shadows, he hummed to himself, the melody a bit off, yet alone, he paid no mind to such shortcomings. He dare not hope. In times past, Marianne often frequented the library, returning these finely bound copies would be the least of his approach for thanks.

Night air served to chill, awakening him fully so as when he entered within the dormitory and passed Marianne’s room on the way to his own, he attributed it thus. The long hall echoed with his solitary footsteps, nothing out of the ordinary, yet he relapsed to memory, how Lysithea would find it rife with ghosts. Perhaps she’d grown from that habit. Still, there was some truth as he paused before his door. Tea with friends, the particular strain of halcyon melancholy, lingered in Ferdinand’s absence. An absence the years could not gain. The hour was too late, in all fashions. He shuttered impossibilities.

Dusty with the stale scent of a vacant enclosed space, his room seemed unchanged by time save these markers. Desk, chairs, bedside cabinet and shelves, their wooden make illuminated in the candlelight, the expended magic tingling at his fingertips in his efforts. A vase of desiccated flowers remained atop the desk. The bandits had not the forethought to venture this deeply into the monastery. Sentimentality placed value upon his hurried steps. Sharp as nostalgia, he pried the false paneling away from the bedside cabinet. And within the carved out hollow lay a thin book of poems. Skimming over the rudimentary efforts of his past self he discovered a multitude of blank pages. No wonder he’d forgotten it.

There was a certain peace of mind with it within his grasp. _No need linger on the past_. This dust would be the end of it—his mattress, not overstuffed but comfortable enough with its lacquered bed frame shining in the light as he tidied up, an effective wind spell could clear the rug of its layer of filth, set to rights on sending out his letters. Tomorrow. Tonight he laid down, and drifted into a dreamless sleep.

With all speed in sending his letters, the aviary’s paucity shepherded a sea-change, flutter of winged messengers from the monastery flocking its staff, which trickled back with the news of safety, faith, and work. The dining hall rather lacked a certain bustle, clattering utensils under less refined hands, the diminished cacophony Claude’s retinue who were as loud as their wyverns afforded their level best to overcome. Familiar, different. Lorenz need focus on the future, the preparations.

And so, small bites of his meal taken with lowered expectations, he chose to sit alone.

Thin flashes of golden armor wove in his periphery, the banner of the Alliance would wave forevermore or suffer a tattered history. But the death knells would take Lorenz should submission befell their resistance.

Impossible.

Pride and resignation mingled as one—the latter anchored on the combined planning of the Professor and Claude. A certain absence marked them, both in presence and demeanor. Not of pure negligence, of that much he was certain, but hazarding guesses served no purpose. Conjecture addled his mind regardless. Full faith was required. Graced by the lightest of interruptions, the corner of his eye met a swathe of unnatural green.

“Mind if I join you?” Ignatz hovered, the hesitation less offensive with the manner inherent of him. “I could use the company.”

“Very well.”

His dreary thoughts were best left for the confines of his quarters and they ate in a companionable silence.

In the space of two bites to Ignatz’s four, Lorenz swallowed the burgeoning topic on the tip of his tongue as Ignatz showed the greater initiative by mentioning the service in the cathedral. The set of Lorenz’s shoulders refuse betray his relief when Ignatz invariably digressed to his true artistic passions. “Sorry, I’ve gotten carried away again, listening to me prattle on.”

“Nonsense,” Lorenz replied, altogether pleased in one regard for an easy passive conversation. “I will always enjoy your enthusiasm and keen eye to detail.”

In this fashion Lorenz siphoned happiness to share in his, a particular infectious joy, a lift stamped to the corners of his mouth like a wax seal, their circumstances of birth inconsequential to the bladed privilege of camaraderie. 

“Only if you don’t drop it.” Hilda cut through, chiding at her elbow Marianne, who held two goblets while she carried their meals. “Might we?” This she directed at the pair of them.

“Ah, Marianne, I hadn’t really gotten the chance to catch up with you.” Ignatz drew her into the conversation. “What did you do in your time away from the monastery?”

“Oh.” She paused, a certain distance in her tone. “My adoptive father guided me in governmental affairs.”

“You and I were occupied much the same,” Lorenz said, private thrill at their similar duties luring his gesture too broad but none paid mind to his breach in manners—his dining partners would have to tolerate his enthusiasm. “The esteemed Margrave Edmund, you must have been very busy.”

She pushed her food around her plate with the tines of her fork. “I am not very good at it.”

Impossible to imagine. The truth nearly tumbled from his lips unchecked.

“I did nothing,” Hilda interjected with a cheer. “House Goneril fared perfectly well without me lifting a finger.”

“What about your letter?” Marianne asked, genuine confusion clear in her expression. “Or does that not count?”

“Definitely not!” Hilda made a funny little noise, her face colouring. “Anyway, Ignatz, you’ve got to show me your latest sketches.”

Despite how Hilda carried on chatting, Marianne remained reticent—something of the old kept him fond.

The task of returning Marianne’s books at hand, Lorenz returned to his quarters, the light stack carried under his arm a finer make than the usual library offerings heightening his curiosity until he capitulated. There, in the shadow of the greenhouse he opened the first and halted motionless, unseemly in the withered courtyard.

Clearly well-loved, a scraped back droplet of beeswax lent its sheen to the pretty gilded end-paper with her name denoted in a script not her own. The other two books bore her name as well, though marked by her own hand.

Oh.

Marianne had meant for him to return such fine things to her, and the clear intention led him settle the books gently back in his room on a high shelf. As the days wore on, through tumultuous changes, those tomes became a balm to his distracting thoughts. Her tastes surprised him, one an Alliance classic which never failed to capture his imagination, another in particular collected short stories poetic in their execution, the last of a modern Alliance novelist, the sort of fare he’d never given himself sanction, trapped as he was by governmental texts. Only now it seemed so, if reading at leisure were ever permitted to him. His knighted retinue’s arrival, their company adding to the cacophonous fanfare of a familiar tempo, the impending declaration of war. Of all they stood against. Indeed it was an escape.

Only one recourse of action for how her gift granted him succor in the forthcoming blur of days, so he invited her via the only proper means for her gesture.

Ritual of tea’s etiquette a familiar dance, Marianne excelled in such a practiced affair after her nerves settled in the tides of their conversation. He spoke at ease just the same. Perhaps too freely. What emboldened him, her secrets remaining her own yet her trembling hand stilled beneath the covering of his palm, a hasty small comfort given for the warmth of the gesture coupled with word and action so in the end, she had smiled. Truly there lay his misgivings—if her humor hinged on his levity, very well leave him a bit of a fool to bring it about again. It was precious to him, her smile. Well, it was no evaluation but an observation he revisited often. Now at the glimpse of her interests, as she left his quarters, door ajar as it had received her, some small hope they could meet again like this ignited.

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, glad as I was for the reunion post-timeskip, Lorenz showed up and almost instantly died... so I had to reflect that here hah. Lorenz and Marianne both have something special and I hope you enjoy this exploration of their relationship, Golden Deer was my first House so I was not prepared for that roller coaster. Kudos are lovely but comments are lovelier still and most appreciated! You can also let me know what you thought on [twitter](https://twitter.com/maisoncavalier)~  
> Thanks for reading!


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